The principal towns are Mazatlan, a port with anchorage on the west coast, which is much visited by European and American vessels, and has been the seat of a very large smuggling trade in which the wares of India and of northern nations were exchanged for the precious metals of Mexico, her grain and skins.
Asilos del Rosario and the Villa de San Sebastian lie in the department of San Sebastian. San Ignacio de Piastla is the capital of a canton. Culiacan lies in the department of Culiacan. Sinaloa or Villa de San Felipe y Santiago de Sinaloa, the Villa del Fuerte or Montesclaros, and Alamos, are the other towns of note in this State.
Sinaloa is rich in metallic deposits of base and precious metals, the chief of which are found at Asilos de Rosario, Cosala, Copala, Alamos, and San José de los Mulatos.
THE STATE OF SONORA.
Sonora bounds eastwardly on Chihuahua and New Mexico; southwardly on Sinaloa; and westwardly on the Gulf of California for 238 leagues between the mouths of the Mayo and the Colorado. Its northern boundary is now the line which divides the Republic of Mexico from the Californian possessions of the United States.
The western and southern portions of Sonora are generally flat. In the south, between the rivers Mayo and Yaqui and the Presidio of Buena Vista, there is a fruitful region, whose productiveness is enhanced by a number of small lakes formed during the rainy season on the levels, which are used by the careful agriculturists for the irrigation of their farms. On the eastern boundary of the State, the ridges of the Cordillera begin to rise, until they tower into the massive mountains which form the Sierra Madre, among the spurs of which many valuable metallic deposits have been discovered. The fine and productive vallies of Bavispe,